Ruin
by blood red youth
Summary: They are doomed from the start. [Olaf/Kit, Olaf/Esmé]
1. Chapter 1

_Part I_

* * *

The tea party was quite dull, except for Kit's slim white fingers turning the book's pages and her wheat-blonde hair glinting in the light of the late afternoon.

"_But I didn't call to him_," she read aloud, her voice sweet like the smell of the fresh-cut grass. "_For he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling_."

He wasn't as clever as Kit, and in truth the passage didn't make much sense to him. The entire first chapter had been mostly just words jumbled into any order, his interest only held by Kit's soft voice and occasional sighing breaths. He could see her brow furrowing and her mouth parting – her tongue always hovered at the corner of her lips when she focused – and that alone gave him indication that this passage was important.

"_Involuntarily I glanced seaward_," she continued, brushing back the stray gold lock that had escaped her clip. "_And distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness_."

There was a light flush to her cheeks that might have been the result of the fair weather. It made her look all the more beautiful. Kit folded the corner of the page – it was old and crinkled anyway, and looked like it might have been folded a thousand times – and raised her hazel eyes to look at him.

"It's very sad," she commented, and he had the feeling she was trying to explain it to him. He had never cared for literature and rarely truly understood the passages she read to him even after she had explained them, but he didn't mind listening. "They are doomed – _Gatsby_ is doomed – from the start."

He nodded, even though most of the passage had already slipped his mind.

"He is reaching out for her," Kit continued, tracing one of her milk-white fingers over the crease of the spine. "But he is reaching out for something that is already gone."

Before he could try to come up with something intelligent of his own to say, or at least something that would show her that he'd been listening rather than just staring at her lips while she spoke, there was an unwelcome clatter of a glass against the metal surface of the garden table, and suddenly there was red wine all over the pages.

There was a flash of laughter, low and sharp and unlike Kit's, and then a hand reached over to right the glass again. In the process, the wine stained the unfamiliar pale fingertips, but was almost unnoticeable against the blood-red varnish.

"I'm sorry," the sharp voice said from above, though it didn't sound particularly sorry at all, and he managed to turn his eyes away from the hand to look at the person who had ruined Kit's beloved book. He was forced to squint because the sun was setting and the light hurt his eyes. He could only just make her out, but he could see a stark sleek black bob of hair, lips the same colour as the wine, and snapping white teeth.

"Oh, Kit, it's only a _book_," the stranger continued while Kit attempted to rescue the novel, dabbing at the pages with the sleeve of her blouse and ruining that as well in the process. She took the vacant seat next to Kit carefully, folding her legs over one another and folding her hands in her lap – but, though she was calculated in her movements, he could sense the alcohol on her somehow, perhaps either in her guilty smile or the way her fingers restlessly tapped against her knee. Without the inconvenience of the low light, he was able to see her better. She was young, years younger than he was, perhaps even younger than Kit, but there was a way about her that made her seem older. She was the kind of pretty that made his eyes hurt, like the girls in magazines and films, with plump lips and glittering eyes. Her dress was knee-length, though it slipped up a little as she crossed her legs to reveal a flash of a tanned thigh, and an almost offensive lime green.

"You know I'll buy you another," the pretty stranger quipped, unconcerned with the vaguely heartbroken look in Kit's eyes. "It wasn't worth ruining your blouse. I'll buy you another of those, too, if you like."

Uncomfortably, Kit laughed – but it wasn't her usual laugh. He knew well enough to tell that this laugh was forced, but it seemed the stranger either didn't know that or didn't mind, because she carried on smiling with her red lips and her vicious white teeth anyway.

"It's alright, Esmé," Kit replied lightly, tucking another curl behind her ear and accidentally staining it with the wine on her hands. The red didn't look right on her like it did on the other girl.

It seemed Esmé felt she had already apologized enough, and she was on her feet again before he had time to blink. "I'm afraid I'm in quite a rush," she was saying, speaking quickly, glinting green eyes already elsewhere. "I'll have to be going – do tell Beatrice on my behalf that the party was lovely. I am sorry about the blouse."

With that, before either of them had any chance to say a proper goodbye, she was gone, striding across the patio in a pair of heels that clattered loudly against the stone with every step.

"I didn't like her," he commented honestly, before he was even certain that Esmé was out of earshot. Kit shushed him and twisted around to ascertain that the girl in the bright green was gone, her curls bouncing freely as she did so.

"You shouldn't be so rude," she reprimanded, tapping him lightly on the arm with her ruined book. It was still wet, and it left a smattering of red behind on his bare arm, shirt sleeves pushed up to his elbows in the summer heat. Neither of them paid much attention to that, at the time.

* * *

_This is intended as part one of three. This is also my first attempt at writing ASoUE for close to four years, so some feedback would be excellent :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_I was wrong when I said that there would be three parts to this - there will be at least four._

_Warnings: Olaf is a psychopath, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, swearing, generally quite unsavoury antics. I will up the rating if necessary - but at the moment I think it's alright. Do tell me so if not. _

* * *

Kit was gone, and she never responded to any of his letters. Sometimes he spilled whiskey or wine on the pages, and he knew she would recognize the smell, but sometimes they were pristine and written when he was sober, and she didn't respond to those either. Perhaps she didn't even bother opening them. _Fire with fire_, he'd said, without even being entirely sure what he meant – and now everyone was against him, now Kit wouldn't come by anymore after work, now he finally was as much of an outcast as he'd always secretly felt.

The worst of it all was the books. He had started running acting classes, not even pretending in the advertisement that he was doing it for anything but the money, and he constantly had to pour over the same texts Kit had once read to him in her sweet, soft voice with her pink lips and her tongue at the corner -

_God_. He took another swig from the bottle – it wasn't like he had any glasses that weren't crusted with cigarette ash, and really what did it matter? – and the red wine splattered down over his shirt. He supposed it didn't matter. Like a true Thespian, he only wore black. Nobody would notice.

There was enough time to start another letter before he had to take one of his hopeless classes. He scrambled for a piece of paper, the back of the water bill would suffice, and scrawled her name at the top.

_You shouldn't be so rude_ he wrote, grimacing at the memory. How many times had she told him to behave, to _think it through_, to be polite? Those days, those nights, he'd felt as though she was the only thing keeping him clinging onto his sanity. _Reply, or you'll be sorry you didn't. I'll find you, even if you don't want to be found. _

That would do for now. He placed the note alongside the others, in a drawer in his desk, vowing that he would send at least a few of the best ones when he could get around to locating some stamps.

* * *

He only stumbled in because he was too drunk to see where he was going. He steadied himself against one of the sinks, noticed the absence of urinals and made to spin around again and leave. Before he could, there was a flash of colour in the mirror, next to him, and his eyes followed it blindly.

Was that a hundred dollar bill? The credit card had a familiar look about it too, though it wasn't one he'd ever had the fortune of touching for himself. She was thin – too thin, almost – all sharp edges and no curves, in a bizarre dress and a smart jacket that she'd allowed to crumple at her feet. She looked _expensive_, the kind of pretty that made his eyes hurt – it was almost too obvious, all manicured and carefully arranged. He could have sworn he'd seen her somewhere before, but he fancied he'd remember in a little more detail if he had. Was she a model, or something, on a billboard somewhere? He was so occupied figuring out who she was that he didn't notice at first that she was rolling the note between her fingers, the card was scraping on the enamel. Then, as she was inhaling and coughing and tilting her head back, it all hit him in a wave of repulsion all at once. Wasn't the middle of the afternoon _a little_ early, wasn't Café Salmonella _entirely _the wrong venue? He supposed he wasn't one to judge.

She glanced back at her reflection and smiled. It was the white teeth and the red lips that caught him, and suddenly he remembered. It was difficult to place her in between all of the memories of Kit's curls and her hands and that goddamn lopsided little smile, but he was sure he could remember her in a green dress with nails the same colour as the wine she spilled.

"Don't I know you?" he slurred, and she whipped around to face him, too fast for his drunk eyes to comprehend.

She was looking straight at him, eyes glinting, and then she laughed out loud, like he'd somehow said the funniest thing she'd ever heard without realising.

"It's doubtful," she remarked, flicking her eyes over his crumbled black shirt – had he changed it today, or was that yesterday? – and then she set about dabbing delicately at her nose with a handkerchief from her bag, then at the edges of her lips, ensuring that the colour hadn't smudged.

They stood in silence for a few minutes after that. She continued to fuss over her appearance, almost obsessively, shaking her fingertips through her sleek hair, picking up her jacket and trying it on, once with the sleeves rolled up, once folded over her arm, once unbuttoned, on the floor again as she adjusted the dress – it was hard to keep up. He watched out of simple curiosity. She wasn't Kit's kind of beautiful, because there was an ultimate perfection in being a little bit less than perfect, thick-rimmed glasses and blemishes, but she was beautiful all the same.

"You were wearing green," he said, unable to put much effort into thinking of anything intelligent to say. He remembered the bright lime better than anything else.

After that, she gasped exaggeratedly and whipped around to face him again, pointing at him with a long fingernail. She clicked the fingers of her other hand a couple of times, as if trying to remember.

"Kit!" she said quickly. He was too drunk to feel the usual pang of whatever emotion it was that usually came with hearing the name. Then she clicked her tongue. He started to say something, but she was racing ahead, too high and going too fast to bother with his explanation. "I don't think I ever did ask your name. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not a volunteer anymore," she said, rolling her eyes at the very thought, still clicking the fingers of her left hand as if she was suddenly unable to stop.

She was still talking, endlessly, about a first husband and a job at a bank, and he ought to have been listening because that would have given him the answers he wanted about how and where she acquired that hundred dollar bill, but he was stuck. _I'm not a volunteer_. Neither was he.

She was so thin that underneath the obtrusive overhead lamp he could see her jaw clenching and unclenching at random intervals. She edged back onto the countertop, one leg delicately crossed over the other.

"You shouldn't tell Kit you've seen me," she was saying, and though he was sure her eyes weren't truly _all_ black, it was the only colour he could pick out in the poor lighting. "We had _quite_ a falling out."

It might have been the drink, but he could have sworn she was smirking. Her knee twitched up and her skirt hitched in response, and she lolled her head backwards and carried on smiling like this was the most natural thing in the world. He was drunk, but she was obvious – really must have been _quite _a falling out, he thought, if five minutes ago she'd turned her nose up at his crinkled shirt and now she looked like _that_. This was probably how it felt to be rich.

_Think about it, _said that voice in his head, one an entire bottle of whiskey hadn't seemingly been able to drown. But he was tired of being told to slow down, tired of being told to _think_, and so when she arranged another perfect white line on the marble, next to her thigh, and quirked her eyes toward him, he didn't even hesitate.

After that, not caring who was playing who at what game, he crushed his lips against hers – all teeth, nothing tender – and twisted his fingers in her hair hard enough that her head banged against the mirror in response.

_Fuck you, Kit_.

* * *

_Please leave a review if you enjoyed, or would like to see this continue, or have any criticism._


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks for all reviews so far. Flamer, you had me going ;)_

_FAIR WARNING: __I'm excessively paranoid about the rating - this_ is quite a strong T. Olaf is psycho, language, drugs, alcohol, unsavoury antics. 

* * *

The sun hadn't even fully risen yet, but for whatever reason she had thought it appropriate to shake him awake. Olaf groaned, mouth dry, creaked his eyes open and succumbed to the instant bludgeoning headache.

He didn't remember noticing the night before, but suddenly the walls rattled and the windows creaked – was this a hurricane? – and when he opened his eyes he could make out the flashing lights and clattering sounds of a train passing outside the window.

Nothing about this was as glamorous as he had hoped. She had a hundred pairs of fashionable-looking shoes, an array of beautiful clothes strewn over dressers and tables and wardrobe doors, and seemingly thousands of expensive beauty products lined up on the bathroom shelf he could make out through the doorway, but the apartment itself left a lot to be desired. The peeling wallpaper and grotty furniture didn't fit with the rest of what he thought he knew. He had an idea that she spent more of her money on the cocaine and the clothes than she did on the rent.

"Loud," he croaked, when the train eventually passed. In the process of thumbing a golden liquid through her hair and applying a generous coat of magenta lipstick, already clad in an entirely lavender suit, Esmé – was that _definitely_ her name? – laughed.

"The world is not quiet here," she joked. "Consider it an alarm clock. You're going to drop me into work, remember?"

The idea of having to move was disgusting to him, and he moaned pitifully. He was still trying to piece together the night before. It had definitely all started in Café Salmonella. After that, nothing was entirely clear – he had no idea how they'd arrived at what seemed to be her apartment, but he remembered fragments of twisting his hand in her hair and _pulling_, choking on perfume, another line, bright eyes as she wiped her lips, both wrists in one hand –

_God_. This wasn't good.

_How could you? _Kit said, in his mind, and he clamped down on that thought the second it arrived, staring hard at the bright red fluffy thing on the back of the wardrobe door, whatever that was, until she was gone again, for now.

He ran his hands over his eyes, trying to bite down the nausea. He had thought he was over his days of hangovers – when you drank for breakfast and drank for dinner it was difficult to figure out where one might begin or end – but today they were, it seemed, back with a vengeance. Esmé tossed his boxers, his jeans and one sock at him while he was still working up the courage to sit. He stared down at the floor, and a pair of bizarre black and gold heels, haphazardly thrown next to the bed with the straps unbuckled, swam into view after a couple of moments.

_Leave the shoes, he growled, and she laughed, breathless, heels in the air, nails dragging down his arms – _

"Get up!" she urged, from the other side of the room, her voice obscured by the hum of the hairdryer. Did she absolutely have to be _so loud_? He blindly followed instruction, clumsily shifting into whatever clothes were at hand, snatching his shirt from its precarious position on the headboard and dragging it over his head.

"Nice place," he sneered, when he discovered, after a few shaky steps on wobbly legs, that her front door had no apparent lock, one of the windows was cracked, and there was an almighty spider resting on the bathroom door. He sat down again, breathing in and out slowly, and located her driver's license on the bedside cabinet. He gave it a brief glance and discovered with relief that he was right about the Esmé part, but also – after some counting on his fingers, there was no Kit to laugh at him here – with some horror that she was _twenty-three_.

Was there something illegal about that? It felt like it, but probably not. He supposed it _really_ didn't matter now, anyway.

"I'm in between apartments," she replied nonchalantly, throwing a couple of unidentified objects into a smart leather bag. "The one thing I didn't keep in the divorce was the house."

Who the fuck was divorced at _twenty-three_?

She tossed him a set of keys, and he was so busy trying to control his breathing and keep his eyes open that they simply hit his chest and fell back onto the mattress. After a couple of moments, he realized that those were _his _keys.

"Anywhere in the banking district will do," she was saying, and, resigned, he staggered to his feet and followed her out into the stairwell, down a couple of flights of stairs and outside, mercifully escaping the horrifying squalor of the apartment block. She climbed into the passenger seat first, while he was still praying that he wasn't going vomit at the wheel, and when he finally drew the courage to open the door, she was already arranging another line on the dashboard with that golden credit card.

_I tried to tell you, _the Kit-voice in his head was saying, _I knew she wasn't a good idea._

_Shut up, _he volleyed back, and started the engine.

* * *

He finally had to make good on that promise to find her even if she didn't want to be found. It was unfortunate that he was forced to find her at one of Beatrice's tea parties, hosted this time at the Snicket house, a bottle of whiskey too late in the day, and especially unfortunate that Lemony had turned him away at the door and forced him to vault over the fence. It was a spectacular entrance, stage left, but none of the audience applauded.

Kit, in fact, was already making her way inside in a flurry of beige before he was on his feet.

"If you didn't want to see me," he started, voice dripping vitriol, trotting along behind her and trying not to stumble. He had a bad habit of losing his balance these days, an unfortunate side effect of the alcohol and the exhaustion. "The polite thing to do would have been to save me the cost of the cab and _fucking write and tell me so_."

"You're _drunk_."

"You always said you _hated_ it when people stated the obvious, Kit."

Kit didn't slow her pace, short heels clattering against the marble, didn't even bother turning to look at him, and so after a moment he grabbed for her arm, yanking her towards him. She stumbled and almost fell – later he would wish he hadn't steadied her. That would have been much more dramatic.

"What's the matter?" he spat, ignoring her comment, gesturing at the grand entrance hall wildly with his other hand. "_Can't you afford the stamps?_"

Her blue eyes were filling up. Even though he was shaking with rage, his grip on her wrist loosened.

"Get out," she whispered, choking on the tears, and she swiped a hand toward the door, but he never moved an inch. He would know when she really meant it.

"All this fuss," he said, hands clenched into fists, desperate to kiss her and strike her all at once. "Over _nothing_. It's _nothing_. I'm with _you_, Kit, whatever side your little heart desires, if it means that much to you."

She threw her hands into the air, exasperated, and a couple of the tears she'd been holding back splashed down onto her cheeks.

"You don't _understand!_" she cried, that damn condescension back again. "You're either with _us_ or you're against _us_, you either think this is all worthwhile or you _don't_. It isn't me and you," she said, and her pretty mouth, the pink lips he'd always watched curve up into that lopsided little smile, was a thin, hard line. "It's _two sides_, regardless of the two of us, and I think I know which one you're really on."

He growled, out loud, like an animal. "I don't care about the sides," he ground out, through clenched teeth. "I don't care about the organization, or about the fires, I just care about _you_."

She stared back at him, the tears rolling down and curling underneath her chin, dripping onto her dress, and the look in her eyes told him that wasn't enough.

"Do you expect me to _lie_, Kit?" he all but screamed, wildly frustrated by her silence. "How can you expect me to believe in humanity, like you _demand_ that I do, when there is _so much_ evil in the world?"

She sobbed then, and her shoulders jerked violently, as though she'd been holding it in for days. The worst of it all was how staggeringly beautiful she was, in tears in her unassuming beige dress, curls loose about her shoulders, glasses in hand as she removed them to swipe at her eyes. It was autumn, but she had been out in the sun, probably cataloguing the flowers again, and her freckles were as pronounced as he'd ever seen them. Didn't she understand how much it pained him to hurt something so precious? It was like pulling the wings off a butterfly, shooting a rare bird, destroying a beautiful painting –

He realized with an uncomfortable sinking feeling that he'd done all of those things before.

"It's one or the other," she said, though her voice cracked and wavered. "It's good or bad, it's black or it's white."

"But it _isn't_ black or white!" he cried, and he grasped her wrist again as if somehow he could prove his point if he shook her arm hard enough. "Everything's grey, Kit. If you could forget about everything else for _just one second _you'd realize – forget the organization – just –"

She paused, and for a moment it looked like she was about to reconsider – there was a shadow of doubt in her eyes, and she looked torn between throwing her arms around his neck and slapping him away. In the end, she stood perfectly still, and sighed.

"It's everything I believe in," she said, clearly struggling to keep her tone even. "Or it's _you_."

Olaf knew the answer before the question was out of his mouth, but his tongue was running too fast for his brain to keep up.

"And which matters more?" he asked, _begged_, barely loud enough for her to hear.

This time, when she pointed towards the door, her pale hand didn't quiver, she never blinked, didn't hesitate.

"Get out," Kit said, eyes cold, and _this time_ she really meant it.

* * *

_Please leave a review._


	4. Chapter 4

**WARNINGS**:_ Language, unsupported headcanons, violence, a sense of impending doom._

* * *

Olaf was only made aware of the fact that he'd scheduled an acting class for that Wednesday afternoon by the unwelcome sound of the doorbell at an ungodly hour (without having slept or opened the curtains, everything always felt terribly late or terribly early and was never anything in between). Once he might have been able to ignore, even twice or three times – he was halfway through a bottle of wine and would rather not have been disturbed. But, insistently, the doorbell rang again and again and again, and eventually he shuffled through the hall with a growl to answer it.

When he wrenched open the door, kicking away some of the letters that had accumulated on the welcome mat since the last time he'd left the house, a selection of misfits stared back at him, some smiling and others looking vaguely irritated. One, with a shaved head and a long, oddly shaped nose squinted at him in the afternoon sun and frowned, as though he hadn't the time to be kept waiting. One, a tall woman with ash blonde hair scraped into a severe bun – something _Orwell_, perhaps Georgina, he remembered from last week – was whispering into her cell phone, and another lanky individual with a pair of hooks where his hands should have been was staring off into the distance. Two others, both almost identical small women wearing a significant amount of makeup that did not cover their excessively terrible skin, shiny on opposite sides with long-healed burns, smiled back at him creepily.

Olaf sighed. Running these classes had been a bad idea. Still, he supposed this troupe of oddballs was currently providing his only stream of income – the seven who had turned up last week had also agreed to act various smaller parts in a one of his plays, which, if he was lucky, might at some point reach the stage and make him enough to pay the electricity bill. After a couple of moments longer of consideration, he decided to invite them in, allowing each of them past him one by one. He was so occupied with observing the bizarre array of people – one, in fact, was so morbidly obese that it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman – that he didn't notice the familiar figure in a pale blue dress and a hat at the back of the group until she arrived in front of him and gave him a long, unreadable look.

It was impossible to mask his surprise. He barked a command for his students to seat themselves around the living room, but couldn't manage to avert his eyes from Beatrice's all the while. Her rosebud mouth quirked up into what he thought was a sad smile, but her big dark eyes were impossible to decipher.

"I told you I'd audition," she said, after it became clear that he couldn't think of the correct way to put his surprise into words. That had been months ago, when he and Kit had shared a parasol and Beatrice and Lemony had announced their engagement, before everything had changed and he'd been asked to choose a _side_. He had naturally assumed that she had forgotten, or had decided against it – after all, it was probably only a matter of months now until she would become Kit's sister-in-law, one of the tribe of Snicket's who now despised him so vehemently. Her engagement ring glittered on her left hand.

Beatrice was lovely, all curves and lovely modest clothes and white-pale skin and soft brown waves. For some reason, though, he had never felt entirely comfortable in her presence. She was too perceptive, with her dark eyes that noticed everything, and he fancied that she could read the letters his parents still sent to him, the evils he'd witnessed, just by looking at him and know, somewhere deep down, that he was a child of the _wrong _side. He ran a hand over the back of his neck and coughed.

"I haven't even finished the script," he admitted. Beatrice hummed, and cast a glance around at the hallway, in all its dank, dark glory. Then, as though they were friends, she reached out and took his hand.

"You've had a difficult time," she said, and for once he thought she wasn't looking at him with suspicion but only with goodwill. "But volunteers must stick together."

He thought about telling her that he no longer cared about being a volunteer. That had largely, for the last few years at least, been something borne out of his obsession with – _no, don't even think the name_ – with _her_, and now that _she_ was no longer a factor, he found he had no energy left to care about the fires or the books or the right and wrong of it all. Before he could say any of that, Beatrice was speaking again, running her thumb over the back of his hand.

"It isn't too late to prove Kit wrong," she said, and he reeled as though she'd slapped him. He spent his days and his nights desperately blocking her out, desperately trying to find ways to drown her out – hearing someone else say the name was like a knife in her sternum. "You can't fall into the…wrong _crowd_."

She gave his hand a final squeeze, and then slipped into the other room to join the rest of his pupils.

Before joining her, making the most of the few moments he had to try and recall some vaguely passable information he could teach the group about today, Olaf stooped to pick up some of the pile of mail that pooled around his feet. He flicked through a couple of envelopes that he could easily identify as bills, or letters from the bank, and then came across one with his name scrawled across it in a familiar cursive, clearly delivered by hand.

He dropped the others and flicked open the corners.

_We have heard about your defection. It was only a matter of time before you came to the realization alone, though it has taken longer than I predicted. Your father and I will always welcome you with open arms. _

_In a month, we will be featuring in an opera– I have enclosed a flyer which contains all of the relevant details should you wish to attend the opening performance. Afterwards, we intend to finish what was started many years ago by the Snickets once and for all._

It was not signed. Olaf's eyes flicked toward the door, checking for Beatrice, but when he couldn't see her he read the brief letter another time, twice, a third. The Snickets. There was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. Beatrice, who was seemingly in the process of endeavouring to bring him back into the fold, offering him friendship, would likely lose her fiancé – Kit, with her clear beautiful eyes and the glasses she couldn't see without, would likely lose her life. There was a twisting feeling in his chest, and he knew he could push it away – he knew there was enough alcohol in the world to drown it if he wished – but he couldn't, _wouldn't_, this time.

He pocketed the flyer, without thinking, and left his mother's letter on the table. Leaving the door unlocked in case any slightly more attractive potential cast members with clear genders and no obvious deformities decided to join them, he took a breath to steady himself and headed into the lounge, three copies of his unfinished script tucked under his arm.

The group were talking amongst themselves when he arrived, and he hastily tossed out two copies of the script out for them to huddle around. Amusingly, the group chose to crowd around one copy between the seven of them, and Beatrice, who had elected to sit in a chair of her own on the other side of the room from the others, was mercifully allowed to have her own.

"Beatrice will be playing the lead," he announced distractedly, _we intend to finish what was started many years ago once and for all, how would he find them, could he warn the Snickets without being considered an accomplice of some kind? _

"I assumed the lead would be male," one of the identical small women interjected, and the other nodded enthusiastically. "The title rather gives that impression."

Olaf waved a hand. "Obviously I'll play the lead," he replied haughtily, in that voice Kit would have disapproved of. _You should audition the lead_, she'd said, laughing when he whirled on her with that indignant look, that mock offence, crying _are you saying I'm not the handsomest man in the world?_ Now his head was beginning to throb. "Beatrice will be playing the _female_ lead."

The group hummed approvingly, and Beatrice shot him a smile. He still couldn't read her eyes, and, new information under his belt, couldn't bring himself to return it. He wasn't an upstanding volunteer, he wasn't even an upstanding man – but even his chest ached painfully at the thought of the pain his parents wished to inflict upon her. He might not have been noble, many would have attested that, but he wasn't monstrous either – as he'd tried to tell Kit, nobody had the fortune of being only one or the other.

He scrambled to fit the group of bizarre hopefuls into positions as characters, already having decided that the androgynous large one would be relegated to being in charge of the lighting, and assigned a series of poorly fitting roles, promising himself that he would re-write most of the characters later to fit his unfortunate cast. The rest of the class consisted largely of a failed read-through and interjections from Beatrice of how certain members of the new troupe might improve their performance when she sensed that he could think of nothing pleasant to say.

"I can't stress it enough," he said, clutching his head and massaging one of his temples, "the only thing you need to remember is your _character_. If you forget your lines, or something goes wrong, it's all going to be alright if you respond _in character_."

"But what if we don't know our character very well?" The man with the hooks for hands asked, looking perplexed and struggling to turn the pages with his makeshift hands. "My character has very few lines, and I haven't the faintest idea how he might respond to something going wrong."

Olaf growled under his breath, flicking the pages to locate this imbecile's character and explain to him all the intricacies of the writing that had escaped him, but before he could respond, the door creaked unexpectedly. At first, he didn't bother looking up, for a second – but the complete lack of an apology for being late, the clattering of the heels against the floorboards was enough to give him pause. _Not you, not now, this is _not_ the time - _

Esmé, in a black dress with one sleeve and a complicated set of bows on the other shoulder and _those goddamn shoes again_, settled herself next to Beatrice on the arm of the chair, legs folded, eyes glinting, white teeth flashing in a sharp smile. Beatrice stared up at her with something resembling confusion, and something else that resembled a kind of trepidation – that worried him the most, that Beatrice with her dark all-seeing eyes _couldn't_ decipher her – and then forced a smile. He could see the cogs turning in Beatrice's pretty head, the way her mouth twitched, and when she looked back at him again it was as if she could see something she hadn't before. He had a sudden feeling that he'd been caught sleeping with the enemy. Perhaps he was consorting with that wrong crowd she had warned of already.

"You're extremely late," the angry looking man with the long misshapen nose said, furrowing his already creased brow. "Now you probably won't get a part at all."

Esmé looked him over with poorly-concealed disgust, her bright eyes narrowing and her lip curling back into something resembling a snarl. Irritatingly, she looked as viciously, startlingly beautiful as ever even despite it. Before she could speak, Olaf rose to his feet and called an end to the session, gesturing for his guests to make their way out. The identical small women scuttled out, chatting excitedly about the production, and after a few moments the woman with the severe bun crossed the room, kissed Esmé on both cheeks and followed along with the others, leaving only Beatrice and Esmé, both still sharing a chair, behind.

Later, he would realize that perhaps this moment had been a choice of side in itself. Crowded together uncomfortably on the same chair, the angel and the beautiful demon stared back at him, one with those dark inspecting eyes, that soft voice, the other smiling still, with those teeth and the skirt hitching above the knee when she shifted her position. At the time, though, he made no such realization. It was another decision, another momentary crossroads, like the moment he'd voiced the old opinion that fire could only be fought with fire, and like before he failed even to make it consciously.

"I'll see you next week, Beatrice," he said, without looking into those indecipherable eyes again. After the door creaked shut behind her, Esmé shifted into the vacated seat as if it were a throne, back-straight and hands on the armrests. There was no need to be particularly civil. From its hiding place behind the couch he withdrew a half-empty bottle of wine and took a deep swig straight from the neck.

"Pleasant surprise," he mumbled, though it really wasn't. He replayed that look Beatrice had given him in his mind and then stared hard back at his unexpected guest, wondering _how awful_ she must have been exactly to inspire that level of response from the woman who had been willing to offer him, of all people, a lifeline.

"I heard Beatrice might be dropping by," she clarified, pausing afterwards as if pointedly deciding not to mention from whom.

When she said nothing else, Olaf paused mid-gulp. He had known while watching the two of them struggle to exchange pleasantries that they were not friends; perhaps they had never been as much, even that afternoon in the lime green with the wine and the book. She had not conceivably wished to see Beatrice, conveniently at _his_ gathering, as any sort of social call. The two had exchanged no information – how could they, when Esmé had made it _so clear_ that she was not a volunteer and would not be considered as such? A part of him deeply hoped she was lying, deeply hoped that this fast, vicious twenty-three year old had secretly fallen for him as a result of their frenzied night together, that she was looking for any excuse to see him. That wouldn't have been ideal by any means, but it would have been bearable – it would have been _fixable_. The way she stared back at him, unashamed, however, made it clear that it _wasn't _that. But there was only one other option.

She had known Beatrice was coming. She had known Beatrice wanted to bring him back into the fold, perhaps, had known that Beatrice wanted to assist his recovery and prevent his defection to that _wrong_ side, and had wanted to prevent it.

He looked up. She was smiling. This was the wrong crowd indeed.

_I told you she wasn't a good idea, _Kit said in his mind, from nowhere, and this time he wholeheartedly agreed with her.

"What do you want?" he asked, voice coming out as nothing more than a croak. Frustratingly, she either didn't seem to realize the gravity of the realization he felt he'd just reached, or she knew of it and simply didn't care – she shifted forwards in the chair, cleavage flashing as she reached forward and nudged the bottle out of his hands, bringing it to her lips to take a delicate sip herself.

"It was only a social call," she said, but it hadn't been, and she was smirking, and he remembered how she'd smirked at Café Salmonella, _we had quite a falling out_, she'd said –

He didn't want to be a player in a game that he didn't know the name or purpose of. He reached out to snatch at her wrist, hard enough to hurt, and in the process the bottle tipped and the wine spilled out onto her side and onto the chair. She let out a yelp, perhaps more concerned for the dress than for the pain in her wrist, but he yanked her forwards anyway, regardless.

"_Who are you?_"

Kit's blue eyes might have been filling up by now, but Esmé's glinted like they always did. She smiled again, infuriatingly.

"A friend of a friend," she replied cryptically, and he shook her arm roughly, unsatisfied.

"_Who?_"

She laughed then, dangerously, and scooted further towards him in her chair.

"Did you read the flyer?" she asked, and it took him a long moment to understand what she could possibly be referring to. As if in a dream, his movements foreign to him as though he was nothing more than a puppet, he reached his other hand into his pocket and drew out the flyer his mother had enclosed inside the envelope. It was relatively garish, like everything his parents did always was, and their names were at the top –

_Esmé Orwell, _it read, in the small print among a list of other names, the minor characters. His grip on her wrist loosened, such was his shock.

"Orwell," he said aloud, without realizing he'd said anything at all. She rolled her eyes, as though this whole event was painstaking rather than shocking.

"You're a bit slow, aren't you?" she asked, and if he hadn't been so numb already the comment might have stung, after so many years of struggling to keep up with and understand Kit and all the books she loved. "Georgina is my sister."

It was all too much. He was nothing more than a pawn in one of his parents' games, and now in hers too, somehow, and it was all too well figured out, as though it had all been planned out long before he'd even recognized her in that bathroom. He grabbed her wrist again and jerked her up from her seat, so hard that she stumbled in her high heels in the process. He dragged her along, delighting in the sound of her heels scraping and catching on the uneven floorboards, everything rushing through his mind at once – _we had quite a falling out_, she'd said, and now he knew how _much_ of a falling out, because she wanted to kill the Snickets too, just like his parents did…

"Get out," he barked, thrusting her out in front of him, towards the open front door. He scrambled on the table to find his mother's letter, to keep all the evidence and save the Snickets and get _out of this mess_, but even when he overturned everything on the surface, even when he looked on the floor and behind and underneath, it was nowhere to be found. He jolted forward and grasped her upper arms, so thin and so breakable, and slammed her against the wall.

"Give it back," he growled, tearing her purse away from her shoulder and overturning it, spilling the contents onto the floor. A few receipts, a delicate purse, a lipstick, a predictable bag of that white powder that made him feel ill now when he looked at it, but not the letter.

For the first time since they'd met, she looked confused. Ignoring that, he slammed her against the wall again, _harder_, and stared hard at the tight dress without pockets, the shoes – was it inside one of the soles?

"The _letter_," he hissed, when she insisted on looking at him with that stupid blankness he'd never observed in her before. "From my mother, _that _letter!"

"I haven't touched your _letter_ –" she started, imperiously, and he let out a growl of pure fury, slamming her back against the wall hard enough that the picture a foot away from her rattled and her head slammed back into it, hard enough to bruise.

"_I need it back!_" he shouted, and before he even focused, before he even knew what was happening, the back of her hand cracked across his face, nails leaving a scratch on his cheek.

"What the fuck would _I_ want with your letter?" she snarled while he reeled away, steadying herself against the wall with one hand and clutching the back of her head with the other, voice strained, perhaps from the pain. "I already _know_ what it fucking says!"

He started towards her again, furiously, and in a second his hands were around her neck, pushing _hard_, and she was choking and gagging and kicking – and then, suddenly, realization hit, like being doused from head to toe in cold water. He released his grip and she staggered away, clutching her throat and breathing deep, little sobs punctuating the end of each gasp, shivering and coughing – this time, it was his turn to steady himself against the wall. His mind was whirring, so fast he could hardly keep up.

_Beatrice. _

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed, please leave a review. _


	5. Chapter 5

It had taken all of his self-control to stand in front of the Snickets' home as calmly as he had, shirt ironed and slacks pressed, hair neatly combed, _haven't had a drink in two days, this had better be worth it_, and when the door swung open to reveal Jacques Snicket, it took everything he had left to force what he hoped looked like a sincere smile.

"I'd like to see Beatrice," he said, as pleasantly as he could, when Jacques grimaced and looked like he would have very much liked to close the door. His one eyebrow furrowed as he considered the request.

Jacques was not as unbearably cynical as his brother, but he was not as wonderful and optimistic as his sister, and he looked the most perfect middle child in that moment, sighing and wincing while he considered his options.

"You aren't popular in this house," Jacques admitted quietly, but he didn't sound resentful or angry. Olaf supposed if he had to spend an afternoon with one of this group of volunteers, excluding Kit, Jacques would probably have been the best candidate. He didn't judge as harshly as the rest – there was always a sad shine to his eyes that made it feel like whatever you'd done this time, he'd always seen worse. "Kit doesn't want to see you."

Olaf exhaled sharply. "I don't need to see Kit today," he said, though his heart sank anyway – he hadn't been intending on having a reunion today, of all days, but it wouldn't have been unwelcome. "I just want to see Beatrice."

Jacques let out an odd little chuckle. "Why?"

_There_ it was – there was a rush of warm relief, and all the muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed at once. If Jacques didn't know about the letter yet, neither did Kit. There was still a chance she'd told Lemony, but the most that bookworm had probably gotten around to doing about it was scrawling it all down in his commonplace notebook.

"She's starring in my play," Olaf said, smiling broadly, unable to stop himself from looking like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Jacques rolled his eyes.

"Alright," he said, grudgingly, offering the man who had broken his twin sister's heart a _slight_ shadow of a smile and shifting over to allow him access to the hallway. "Beatrice was in the library, the last I saw of her."

Olaf grinned – it wasn't the time to offer Jacques a handshake or a pat on the shoulder because they weren't on terms _that good_ yet, but he nodded and tried his best to look as grateful as he could. Before he could dash off, Jacques grabbed for his sleeve and steered him away from one staircase and towards another.

"Kit is in the garden," he said, tilting his head to the side to indicate that they had just avoided the window. "If you'd like either of us to live past this evening, _don't_ let her see you."

This time, Olaf couldn't resist planting a hand on the older twin's shoulder and clasping tight.

"You're not as bad as everyone makes out, Jacques."

The middle Snicket rolled his eyes, but that slight shadow of a smile was still playing at his lips.

"Neither are you, I suppose," he admitted.

Olaf quirked an eyebrow merrily. "Remind Kit of that, on my behalf?"

Jacques shot back his trademark deadpan glare, and didn't bother dignifying such a ridiculous request with a response. Olaf paused outside the door to the library and straightened his shirt collar again, ran his palms over his trousers as though ironing out imaginary creases, and sighed. There were obtrusive shards of memories of Kit's pretty curls against the bookshelf, of afternoon's spent with a book uselessly dangling from one hand and watching her eyes scan the pages of her own, of kissing the pale skin at the nape of her neck when it was getting too late.

_Not now_, he told those shades of a more beautiful summer, and pushed open the door. Beatrice was in view, perched on the edge of the window seat, and her head snapped up quicker than he would have liked.

The door clicked shut behind him and he loitered between two bookshelves, examining the look in her dark eyes when she slid the bookmark into place and folded the book shut.

"Lemony?" he asked, after a moment, and she shook her head.

"Downstairs, with Kit."

Her eyes were still locked on him even when he averted his – he could feel the weight of her stare when he took a few steps forward and settled himself into an armchair.

"I received the note as you arrived that afternoon," he began, hurriedly, because what was the point of pleasantries when they both knew exactly why he was here? "I could hardly mention it in front of a group of strangers."

Beatrice's plump mouth was pressed into a tight, thoughtful line.

"I suppose you intended to, though?" she asked, and it was all too clear from her tone that she found the thought fairly absurd.

Olaf sighed. "I would have done."

She hummed. "It is difficult for you," she suggested, unsubtly prompting him to make another mistake, to reveal something incriminating. "They are your parents."

"Kit is –" he paused halfway, remembering that Kit wasn't anything to him anymore, she'd made sure of that. He coughed awkwardly. "If it was a choice between the two, I like to think you know which side I would take."

Beatrice drew breath to speak, but then she hesitated. It was one of the most frustrating things about her. She was so intelligent, so well thought-out, that it was always impossible to tell whether she was giving a genuine reaction because she always caught herself before she said anything she didn't really mean. That ability to articulate made him bizarrely envious.

"I don't think you'd have conspired to harm Kit," she assured him, but there was still a cold, hard look in her eyes that made him think he wasn't out of the woods entirely yet. "But I don't think you'd have prevented your parents pursuing their evil scheme either, even if you had the chance. I can't see you shedding any tears over Lemony."

In one way, she was right. He didn't care much for the Snickets as a whole, or even for volunteers as a whole, he just cared about _Kit_ – that had become so obvious now that it was difficult to deny it.

"It's –" he began.

"– Difficult for you, like I said."

Finally, her eyes slipped from his down to her powder blue skirt, where her delicate fingers smoothed out some of the folds.

"You can appreciate why I took the letter."

It wasn't a question – Beatrice was unwaveringly direct, and she would not apologize for a decision she felt that she had made in the interest of the greater good. Olaf nodded.

"You can appreciate, too, that your parents are out of control."

This was dangerous ground. Olaf had walked an awkward line for years, skirting this very issue as often as he could, claiming separation from his parents. When unfortunate events befell some of the volunteers, he had conspired with the likes of Beatrice and the Baudelaire's and the Snicket's about how it might be possible to put them right, or at least to stop them from happening again, all the while knowing that _they_ were responsible. The truth was that they had _always_ been out of control, gasoline in the hallways and unsavoury assistants with blood on their hands, guns in bedside tables, running from one town to another. Nobody knew _out of control_ as well as he did.

"It isn't going to be possible to allow them to carry on the way they are," she warned, and her brown eyes were back on his again, as if scanning for any sign of uncertainty.

"It isn't _just_ them," Olaf argued weakly, remembering a whole host of dark characters crowded into the tower room and laughing over new schemes, some who even terrified his mother, headstrong as she was.

Beatrice sat forward in her seat, studying him closer.

"You always said you couldn't remember the others."

Olaf sighed. "I wouldn't know any of them by name – I was only a boy. One of them was bald."

Beatrice ran a hand over her eyes wearily. "You've told me that before."

They sat in silence for a few moments after that. The worst of it all was that he could understand why this was so difficult. He was a volatile drunkard with blood ties to some of the individuals that had stared the bloody mess in the first place, with no interest in their secret codes and all of their nobility. He wasn't sure how they ever had trusted him, let alone how they could again.

"Why haven't you told Jacques?" he asked, staring at her while she rubbed her hands together worriedly, head turned to stare out of the window at the clouds. At first, she didn't respond.

"I appreciate your discretion," he clarified. Discretion was a word he had learned in this library one night with Kit, though he didn't remember how, he just remembered the chocolate-coloured ribbon in her hair that night and the way her hand had brushed against his thigh under the desk. "But I was convinced Jacques was going to throw me out – I was shocked when I realized you'd kept all of this quiet for my sake."

Beatrice let out a tiny chuckle. "I was hoping we might exchange one favour for another," she said, swinging back around to face him. Before he knew what was happening, she had reached forward and grasped one of his hands. "We haven't ever asked anything of you, as far as I remember."

They hadn't, apart from to abandon everything he'd ever known.

"I don't know if you know where they are, or what they're doing," she began. "But I need you to find your parents and convince them to _stop_ all of this."

The request was so absurd that Olaf laughed, a sharp loud bark, before he could even begin to stop himself. Beatrice looked like she wished to reprimand him, but before she could he shook off her grip and stared hard back at her.

"They have been doing this since before you were _born_, B," he said, palms splayed outwards. "You think I never wanted to stay in one town when I was a kid? You think I never _wanted_ to stop running?"

Beatrice did not relent.

"I don't want to fight fire with fire," she said. "But I'm starting to be afraid that without your help I might _have_ to."

With that, she stood.

"I know you never wanted to choose," she said, softly, and there was a hint of sadness and of pity in her tone. "But you always knew that one day you would have to."

He spluttered, struggled to find the words. "What if I can't –"

"You'll have to," she said, in a tone that left no room for any negotiation. "It's their side or it's ours."

"I don't even know how I'd go about locating them," he said, mind racing. The flyer was still in his pocket, but wouldn't be opera be too late?

"I'd suggest starting with Esme," Beatrice said coolly, and he jumped at the mention of the name. "_And_ I'd suggest staying well clear of her afterwards."

"I didn't know she was one of them," he said, automatically, and only registered afterwards that he was probably lying. Was it entirely true to say that he hadn't suspected as much in Café Salmonella with that sharp smile and her obvious game plan? Beatrice hummed again, as though she wasn't quite sure whether she believed him, and quirked an eyebrow.

"I only realized that afternoon after the rehearsal," he said weakly.

"I'm sure," Beatrice said, though it sounded like she certainly wasn't.

"I met her at _your_ garden party," he said, trying and failing not to sound accusatory.

"She wasn't invited," Beatrice remarked. "And I imagine you also coincidentally _ran into_ her another couple of times afterwards."

She was too clever for this. Olaf sighed loudly and groaned, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

"I didn't know she was anything to do with my parents, at least," he said truthfully. "And, to be fair, I thought she was a friend of yours, considering that she'd been _your_ guest."

This time, Beatrice cracked a genuinely amused smile.

"Esme is no friend of mine," she revealed. "But we do have several years' worth of unfinished business. I know enough about her to understand most of the details about how you two have become friends."

He never would have called himself the blushing type, but this was mortifying. He winced as though she'd pinched him, and clicked his tongue awkwardly.

"I wouldn't call her a friend," he mumbled. "She's becoming more of a nuisance."

"I'm not sure whether Kit would care if you think she's a friend, a nuisance, a lover or the devil incarnate," Beatrice commented slyly, and the insinuation was clear – he swallowed thickly, feeling like he was back at school being reprimanded by a headmaster. "But I'm _quite_ sure she wouldn't be happy either way."

When he remained silent a moment too long, unable to think of any suitable excuse, Beatrice tutted and sighed.

"It's alright," she said, eventually. "Esme's tricky. You aren't the first one she's tried to…_corrupt_," that peaked his interest briefly, but this wasn't the right time to ask. "And I'm quietly sure that you won't be the last. She might be useful for getting to your parents, but try not to engage with her too _intimately_ in the process, if you can possibly manage that. Considering your parents, I'm a little surprised you couldn't spot her intentions from a mile away."

Olaf wondered why he'd never listened to that Kit-voice all the times she'd told him that Esme definitely wasn't a good idea, and make a silent vow to himself that he would listen to her guiding voice in future.

"Don't tell Kit," he half-begged, eyes downcast.

Beatrice was silent for a moment too long. "We'll see," she muttered, and then she headed for the door, holding it open for him. He couldn't take any comfort from that, but it was probably the best he could have hoped for in the way of a response.

"I'll see you on Wednesday," she said, when he passed her in the doorway, and he whirled around to look at her, brow furrowed. She rolled her eyes as though he was so stupid she could barely stand to speak to him any longer. "At _rehearsal_."

He stood for a moment, mouth open, and stared at her, unable to think of a single thing to say in response – but then, before he could even begin to question her, it all fitted together in his mind again. Beatrice hadn't wanted to help him that afternoon at rehearsal – she'd wanted _him_ to help _her_ with the problem of his parents. She wasn't continuing their rehearsals as scheduled out of the goodness of her own heart, but because she didn't truly trust him. He made a mental note to hand over any correspondence he received from his parents and admit to any unsavoury dealings at the start of that meeting to save another of these.

Beatrice's intentions weren't as good as he'd naively thought that afternoon at his acting class. Were these actions noble in the sense most volunteers would use? Olaf was inclined to believe that they probably weren't. It was ironic that Beatrice, of all of them, was starting to learn to fight fire with fire herself.


End file.
